By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

ABUJA — THE Leadership of Nigeria Medical Association, NMA, has refused to yield to the pressures mounted on it by the Senate President, Senator David Mark, Delta State governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, and the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, to call off the on-going strike.

The Senate President had made spirited efforts towards persuading the striking doctors to see reason to suspend the strike, especially as the country was facing serious health challenges occasioned by the out-break of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease.
But the doctors were adamant and had given conditions to suspend the strike, including reversal of the suspension of residency programme in government hospitals which affected about 16,000 resident doctors.

Both the Senate President and the leadership of NMA, led by the National President, Dr. Kayode Obembe, had met on Sunday possibly to find a lasting solution to the strike, but there was no resolution at the meeting, which was rescheduled for Tuesday.
After the meeting which lasted till the early hours of  yesterday, NMA President, Dr. Obembe, said he would not promise  when the strike would be called off as he had to report to the general congress the outcome of the meeting with the Senate President and the government delegation.

After the prolonged meeting attended by Senator Mark, Dr. Uduaghan who is also a medical doctor, Dr. Okukpe, Senator Tunde Ogbeha and the leadership of NMA  at APO residence of the Senate President, Obembe said he would not give the exact date and time the strike would be called off until he reported back to his members.
He, however, noted that “the meeting with the Senate President is  successful.”

Senator Mark had at the closed door meeting, reminded the doctors of the implications of the strike to the health of the citizens, if they continued.
Indications were that government complied with a reasonable number of their demands, following which they resolved to brief their members before the final decision to call off the action.

On the notion that the striking doctors abandoned the nation on account of the out-break of Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, the NMA President stated that “there was never a time we refused to respond to the national emergency; we have been alive to our duties as professionals and to our father land.”